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| Tuesday, January 26, 2010 07:36 PM |
| (Last updated on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 09:07 PM) | | On the Viewer - District 9 |
 by Fëanor |
Hey, I finally saw this movie! It's not as good as I had been led to believe, but it's certainly not bad. It imagines an alternate history in which aliens came to Earth in 1982 and "landed" in Johannesburg, South Africa, where they were confined to a ghetto called District 9 and treated like animals. Finally the humans in the city aren't satisfied even with that, and demand that the aliens be moved further away. So a government agent named Wikus Van De Merwe is put in charge of an operation to evict all the aliens and move them to a series of tents set up outside the city, which is little more than a concentration camp. But what happens to him during the operation profoundly alters not just Wikus, but also the relationship between aliens and humans.
The film starts out in full documentary style, showing us interviews with experts and eye witnesses, and footage from news cameras, surveillance cameras, and an official recording of the resettlement of the aliens. After about 20 minutes of carefully building the illusion that we're watching a real documentary, the film seems to give up on the idea, and we begin to see more and more footage that obviously couldn't have been recorded by any in-universe cameras - footage of aliens in private, or of Wikus alone and on the run. You'd think at this point the film would give up on the documentary premise altogether, but it does not; more interviews with experts and eyewitnesses keep popping up. It feels a bit dishonest and hacked together, like they didn't have the courage to follow through completely on their original documentary premise, but couldn't quite bring themselves to give it up entirely. Luckily, both the pseudo-documentary and pure fiction sequences are well filmed and well acted. The scenes are shot with hand-held cameras in a cinema verite style, and the dialog often sounds ad libbed, giving everything a kind of gritty realism. Sharlto Copley, who plays Wikus, is particularly good.
There's a lot of really disgusting stuff in the movie, as if the filmmakers deliberately wanted to gross us out. Maybe that's Peter Jackson's influence. It's not something I'm going to complain too much about; I don't mind a little bit of gross-out for gross-out's sake. It just seems silly given that the rest of the film is so earnest.
Some people have tried to draw a parallel between the aliens' situation and Apartheid, and indeed the filmmakers seem to be welcoming such a comparison by choosing to park the alien spaceship right on top of Johannesburg. But if there is such a parallel being made, it's not a very complimentary one. The aliens are described as - and mostly appear to be, with a few notable exceptions - primitive and beast-like. It's suggested that perhaps this impression comes partly from prejudice on the part of the humans, but not entirely. The Nigerians are also portrayed in a pretty unfriendly light - they're all cruel, superstitious gangsters.
All that being said, the most likable character in the movie is definitely one of the aliens: Christopher Johnson. Johnson, unlike many of his fellows, is really intelligent, and despite what Wikus does to him, he's moved by the human's plight. Johnson just wants to save his people, and his child, and get back home.
It's also possible to sympathize a little bit with the human protagonist, Wikus, but only after he's begun to grow as a character. He starts out as a rather pathetic, cowardly scumbag, who's only slightly less racist than some of his fellow humans (and perhaps slightly more than others). Of course, it's the arc of his character that makes him interesting, and I like that it takes him a long time to change.
The film's plot reminds me of Avatar's, but District 9 is far more realistic, if perhaps, in some ways, slightly less satisfying. There is no epic war, and Wikus doesn't jump up and lead the aliens in rebellion. Like I said, Wikus' change is gradual, and he never really embraces the aliens, but is instead constantly fighting against becoming one of them. Also, there is no successful rebellion, although there's the strong suggestion that one might be on the horizon, perhaps in a sequel.
A lot of imagination and creativity went into the alien technology and biology, and although some of the ideas are familiar, some of them do indeed feel satisfyingly alien. The weapons are impressive, and the action is exciting. It's an engaging and moving story. In the end, you are as anxious as Wikus that Johnson and his son make it to the mothership and get away.
District 9 is flawed, and I'm a little disturbed by the comparisons it seems to be trying to make, but it's definitely a cut above your average sci-fi action film, and overall a very clever and entertaining movie. |
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